Brian Johnson

Episode 63: Scary Mind Math & ANTs

“ Our minds--made up of our
thoughts, beliefs, and self-talk--are always “on.” According to
scientists, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s one
thought per second during every waking hour.
No wonder we’re so tired at the end of the day!And
what’s even more startling is that of those 60,000 thoughts, 95
percent are the same thoughts you had yesterday, and the day before,
and the day before that. Your mind is like a record player playing
the same record over and over again... Talk about being stuck in a
rut...Still, that
wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the next statistic: for the
average person, 80 percent of those habitual thoughts are negative.
That means that every day most people have more than 45,000 negative
thoughts... Dr. Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist and brain
imaging specialist, calls them automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs.”
~ Marci Shimoff from Happy
for No Reason

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Transcript

“ Our minds--made up of our
thoughts, beliefs, and self-talk--are always “on.” According to
scientists, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s one
thought per second during every waking hour.
No wonder we’re so tired at the end of the day!And
what’s even more startling is that of those 60,000 thoughts, 95
percent are the same thoughts you had yesterday, and the day before,
and the day before that. Your mind is like a record player playing
the same record over and over again... Talk about being stuck in a
rut...Still, that
wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the next statistic: for the
average person, 80 percent of those habitual thoughts are negative.
That means that every day most people have more than 45,000 negative
thoughts... Dr. Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist and brain
imaging specialist, calls them automatic negative thoughts, or ANTs.”
~ Marci Shimoff from Happy
for No Reason

Um, that’s frightening. :)

So, to re-cap, on average we have 60,000 thoughts a day. 95
(!!!!!) % are the same thoughts from yesterday and the day before
that and the day before that and... AND 80 (!!!!!!) % of THOSE
thoughts are NEGATIVE?!?

O.M.G. ... ANTs, ANTs, ANTs!

Time to get out some (organic, of course) ANT spray and clear out
our minds, eh?!?

In the book Marci presents some awesome ways to make sure we
“don’t believe everything we think”--including Byron
Katie’s brilliant “The Work.” (See
Notes on Loving What Is for more on that, and,
of course, pick up the book for more!!)